The Pod Piper

It's not too late to look back. In some cultures, it is customary to celebrate the closing of a year by counting down it's final seconds amidst a band of revelers. In my culture, it is customary to celebrate the closing of a year by feverishly pouring over the culture I've consumed in the previous 12-ish months and futilely attempting to rank what I most enjoyed. On December 31, 2019 I went to sleep at 8:30 PM, and my annual list is only now coming to your eyeballs as January scootches ever closer to February. Here now, friends, is what I've got. 2019: The Year in Podcasts  From:  The Pod Piper Recommended for:  Conceivably everyone. Drop Schedule: Annually (December/January) Average episode length:  A couple minutes to read or skim, several hours if you follow all the links   Rating:  Gotta Have It THE NEW SHOWS 1. Book of Basketball 2.0 Is it cheating because this is kind of a sequel to a book? Maybe. But it ...

SOMETHING NEW “The internet doesn't have all the answers. But that doesn't mean we can't find them.” So goes the conceit of the new(ish) podcast Underunderstood . It’s a little bit of an antithetical pod to Reply All , a show about the internet that is really about the world from the perspective of two fairly entrenched internet users. Moreso, Underunderstood actually reminds me a bit of Endless Thread , Reddit’s initial voyage into podcasting. In fact, an episode of ET ended up in the UU feed between season 1 and 2...something I swear I didn’t know before noting the comparison. There is plenty of quirk to go around, but the question I’m left with after completing all episodes is whether there is enough worthwhile substance to sustain listeners who stay the course. If I had never heard a podcast before, I might be more intrigued by this show. The reporting feels very thorough; my problem is that it is too “random facty” for me. More than that, I think the varia...